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The pistol has now been fired for so
many debates we are so badly prepared for. The future of Britain, the
future of Europe, the future of Britain in Europe and maybe the
future of both without each other.

For once in over 40 years the people of
Britain, all of its people, are being given a vote to decide our
future. General elections don’t
count because under first past the post most votes don’t count,
making a mockery of any democratic claim. So not since we last
decided to stay or leave the EU in 1975 will the fate of the nation,
and more, be decided by its people.

Of course the purpose of the referendum
was no such thing. The purpose was to place a sticking plaster over
the gapping wounds of the right on Europe, both within the Tory party
and between the Tories and UKIP. But no matter. We have a vote. How
do we use it?

We start by learning from Scotland.
They showed in their referendum that when the people have a decisive
vote on something that matters it opens up a space to demonstrate
that we have much more than a vote, that we have hearts and minds,
imagination, courage, vision, hope, love, belief and solidarity. And
so they had a conversation across their nation about what sort of
people and country they wanted to be.

Because we must use this once in a life
time opportunity not just to decide whether to stay or leave – but
to re-imagine what Britain and Europe are for in the 21st
century and what their relationship should be. As such the ballot
paper, with Stay or Leave printed on it, is far too small for such an
epic consideration. But it is the best space we have, so we must pull
it, stretch it and expand it, while
the democratic window remains briefly open.

Unfortunately, Labour and the wider
left are badly prepared for this debate. Labour on Europe is a
mixture of luke warm, free market, skeptic or exit. No one has put
the hard yards in of thinking through a progressive or radical case
for Europe and then built the networks to make it happen across the
continent. Honorable exceptions go to Policy
Network, the Centre for European Reform and Compass, the organisation I chair, which has helped
run a good
society in Europe project for a decade. But the leadership and
mainstream Labour have had little or nothing to say about the future
of Europe. The Labour In campaign seems content to re-run the 1975
referendum campaign around trade and jobs. We must do so much better
or we will lose a vote and lose a huge opportunity to change the
political weather.

Because this is an incredibly
opportunity to rethink, to ask the question ‘what is Europe for in
the 21st century’ and if we were starting with a blank sheet of
paper, ‘what would Europe look like if we built it now’?

The debate needs to start with a grown
up discussion about sovereignty. Because the truth is that borders
are relentlessly and remorselessly becoming less and less valid.
Globalization (especially of finance), climate change and mass
migration, the most pressing issues of the day, are by definition
beyond national control. If we want social solidarity, secure
renewable energy, to be able to tax Google and to stop bankers
destroying our economies then that can only ever be achieved at a
global and European level.

The simple and unavoidable fact is that
power has been separated from politics. Unless and until we build
the institutions and platforms to reconnect the two then everything
else is for the birds. Only from a European, and eventually global,
basis can we build the platforms and the rules for civilization to
flourishing in the 21st century.

But of course that demands a very
different type of Europe. The Europe of yesterday was founded on the
desire for peace. The process was free trade, an economic union that
would irresisibly create a political union. That project is now dead.
This pragmatic foundation worked when things were good, the Golden
Age years of growth and relative social harmony in the 1950 and
1960s. But Europe has been creaking ever since – essentially since
Britain joined the EU. Slowly the crisis of the post war social
market, of social democracy and Christian democracy, of the decline
of class, the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of
financialisation, globalization and individualization have all caught
up with and zoomed ahead of the Europe of Monnet and Schuman.

So the choice is not exit or surrender
but how we transform Europe. And the basis must be moral not just
pragmatic. We must build a new Europe because we believe in
solidarity and cooperation, in our interests and the interests of
everyone. We must now actively embrace openness, diversity, pluralism
and as much continent wide equality as we can create. This has to be
a fully democratic and accountable Union, a Europe done with people
not a Europe done to people.

From a moral
basis we can build the institutions and better still platforms that
will enable the citizens of Europe to shape their Europe. We need
public platforms for sustainable energy, Europe wide agreements on
tax, a continent wide project to deal with immigration, solidarity
transfers for welfare and of course a tax on financial transactions.

Of course this feels daunting. We have
to rebuild at the same time as we face climate change, the strong
possibility of another crash and mass immigration. But the choice
cannot be ducked. If it is, Britain will be isolated and its exit
could trigger an even bigger EU crisis with Europe making another
dramatic and terrible turn to the right as it did in the 1930s.

Britain will be the crucible of debate
on the future of Europe over the coming weeks and months. We must
invite all of Britain and all of Europe in to the debate. We must use
this opportunity to create a pan-European network of activists,
thinkers, campaigners and political parties that want a different
Europe. That in turn requires a new demos – spaces capable of
carrying this debate. In our increasingly networked and connected
society this is becoming possible. DIEM25
offers us new thinking space the creation of European citizens
becomes possible through initiatives like WeMove.eu

Here in the UK we must learn another
lesson from Scotland, how to build an ecosystem of ideas and
organisations who want a progressive Europe. Compass has just
launched GoodEurope.org to
help the process, to reimage what Europe is for, what polices and
institutions are necessary to rebuild it and what our theory of
change for Europe is – how we make it happen. Opportunities like
this rarely come around. We have to seize it. We don’t have much
time. Europe is our battlefield. We cannot leave it to our enemies.